These are the questions of the research presented in this book. The author seeks the answers with the help of the sociology of knowledge. He focuses on the conceptual change that took place during the period 1990-2010 and particularly on the relationships between the rearrangements of the academic field and the modifications of the division of labor of dominance. By investigating the results of certain social theories with a critical orientation, he proposes a model of interpretative explanation of the ongoing processes and, at the same time, highlights the social contents of the so-called "knowledge society."